Saturday was “annual kitty torturing day” at my house. For those of you new to the party, that’s how my cats view their annual checkup. It’s nothing horrendous: the usual listen to heart and lungs, palpitate abdomen, check eyes, ears, and teeth, stick thermometer up butt, and stab with a needle or two (vaccine SCIENCE!). But, apparently, this is a really big deal when you’re a 14 pound cat.

I mean, I don’t enjoy my doctor’s visits either, but I have to shut up when he does most of the above (though the thermometer goes in my mouth because I’m a big girl). I also have the benefit of understanding the importance of the visit; a bit of trivia I have not succeeded in imparting onto the cats. So for them, this time of year is a REALLY BIG DEAL.

In fact, my boy kitty hates it so much that last year we had to drug him just to get through unscathed.

Fortunately, last year, it worked. This year… not so much.

It looked promising, he took the meds easily and tolerated the wonderful tech weighing him to see if he’d lost weight like he was supposed to (he hadn’t). He explored the exam room like a champ with slightly wobbly legs. He even jumped onto my lap for a snuggle and attempted to get up on the exam table.

Then he saw his sister, who was hiding behind the black laptop like she does every year, trying to blend in and hope that, this once, we forget to examine her. Apparently, this was a traumatic thing for Saffron, and he started to growl and hiss (the working theory is that he didn’t recognize her. Or that he was being a jerk). I thought it was still going to be manageable, if difficult. The vet came in, did her essential oil magic (the cats smelled really good) and gave Saffron some (dried and fresh) catnip, which calmed him enough that he didn’t mind us being there, examining Socks, whom he was still growling at.

He started to get antsy so we ended up taking Socks to the back room (surgery) to give him a break with the lights out, and finished her exam there. For various disgusting reasons involving glands needing to be expressed, it turned out to be a good thing that we’d moved. Then we put Socks in her carrier in the hallway and went back to get Saffron.

Who had spent the whole time prowling and stalking and generally pretending to be a wild jungle cat. We (the vet and I) had come in to get his vaccines to prep in the back room in preparation for the usual brief exam, stabby, and put kitty back in carrier when we made the unforgivable mistake of trying to leave the room without him getting out.

Internet… my cat bit the vet. He ran into the hallway, clawed onto her leg, and bit her knee. And when she tried to close the other exam room door (which was open to the front, where he could escape, he metaphorically lost his sh*t. When I tried to help the vet, he attacked me.

I have to say, that having a cat claw in your bottom lip while simultaneously having your index finger bitten is not pleasant. Nor is having a cat claw stuck in your forearm with said cat growling and hissing while you’re trying to contain the copious amounts of blood gushing from your lip. My utmost support to the vet tech trainee who did what neither the vet nor I could do and caught Saffron underneath a quilt and held him there without getting a scratch. At this point, he also literally lost his sh*t.

At this point, I decided that Saffron had enough and needed to take a nice, long nap. So we put him in a box.

And then we filled that box with gas (kitty nitrous oxide) and waited until he fell asleep. Then we pulled him out and got on with many things we couldn’t when he was awake.

It was a more thorough exam than I usually get, and included blood and urine panels (and faeces, fresh from the floor) because why not? He’s the cat version of middle aged and he’s probably due for a good workup. And it wouldn’t hurt to check his blood work since he’s overweight.

We plopped his doped up body into the cat carrier (he barely fit all splayed out like that), I nursed my wounds, hung around until he was more or less awake, paid up, and headed home.

Where I had a VERY snuggly Saffron.

They warned me that he would be snuggly, but I was unprepared for how vocal he would be. He spent most of Saturday sitting and crying, even when asleep. It was kind of heartbreaking.

He also spent about two hours carrying a yellow toy mouse around in his mouth like it was his baby. He barely put it down to eat. And yes, my big macho cat cuddled with it.

Even on Sunday, he was still pretty snuggly, which made it hard to get any work done.

But Internet? With something this cute, I find it hard to justify doing anything else but cuddle all day.